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Media server - for this you need good video and audio processor power. RaspPi is not capable of it.
File server - You could use the cheaper variant (RaspPi), but nevertheless, this one could do the job too. Maybe it will be able to run some more advance NAS server!!! To be seen...
Router/Switch/Firewall - you name it. The nice touch is that you could make/build your own server, instead of praying that the nice little toy you bought from Wallmart does not have toooo many backdoors in it.

I actually was really liking the prospect of using this as a router. I currently have an old PC doing this, but it is not the perfect solution (power hungry, for one). The ethernet driver looks like it can do BQL which is great for the fq_codel qdisc, and the wireless card seems capable of AP mode (not 100% sure on either of these... just did a cursory glance). The main issue is it only has one ethernet port, would be perfect if they added an optional second or something, as I'd rather not add one via us

Power calculations is exactly why my latest home-built router uses an low-power mother board with an Atom CPU rather than something more power hungry. Not as efficient as some other options like this SOC, but it's still x86 so I had more options on Linux distros. In the end it was personal preference, tho.

It is interesting and I like to be able to play around with new tech. The codel qdisc is only available in fairly new kernels... was introduced in 3.5 I think. Most custom firmwares use rather old kernels and you have little control over the actual software versions. I also use an ath9k adapter with hostapd, it is hard to find routers with 450Mbs support in linux. Also, I can use it as a samba host, torrent host, plus the fedora builds use hardening techniques and it has selinux enabled by default. Ple

My problem with RaspberryPi for file server is the 10/100 ethernet. Gigabit is cheap and prevalent. I understand the keeping costs down aspect though.

The rPi has enough ethernet issues that Gigabit wouldn't make much difference (there are people who will sell you a 'gigabit' USB 2.0 NIC; but that's because there are bad people, not because it works all that well). The ethernet, and both accessible USB ports, are provided by a combo NIC/USB hub switch dangling from a single USB2 root port on the SoC. Since SD cards top out at fairly low capacities, that typically implies that the USB bus will be dealing with mass-storage chatter between the rPi and your external HDD enclosure and ethernet traffic for whatever file serving protocol you are using. Not Fast.

Same problem as this model. The Gigabit is limited to 480Mbps (USB 2.0 bus speed). Actually this Cubic isn't all that different from an RPi, they run the same family chips, the same type of RAM, the same type of I/O.

Same problem as this model. The Gigabit is limited to 480Mbps (USB 2.0 bus speed). Actually this Cubic isn't all that different from an RPi, they run the same family chips, the same type of RAM, the same type of I/O.

Not true. Ethernet does not go through USB here; it is connected to the SoC directly. See http://boundarydevices.com/i-mx6-ethernet/ [boundarydevices.com] . The Raspberry Pi uses a BCM 2835 from Broadcom, while the Cubox-i uses a Freescale i.MX6 , so they are not the same chip family, they aren't even made by the same company. Raspberry Pi also does not have eSata, while the CuBox-i.

there are people who will sell you a 'gigabit' USB 2.0 NIC; but that's because there are bad people, not because it works all that well

If I get ~9 megabytes per second in the real world from 100Mbps Ethernet on actual file transfers over the on-board Ethernet on my laptop, and ~30 megabytes-per-second on actual file transfers the USB 2.0 Ethernet adapter on that same laptop, then: Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0 should be a boon.

Not because performance is improved by a factor of 10 (as going from 100 to 1000

My router, provided by ISP and that I'm forced to use no matter what, does a lot of things already but not quite everything. What I want most is a ssh server with screen sessions. Eventually I'd hope to be able to wake the big PC up. Some "personal storage cloud" (bullshit for stuff that I can access from outside), even just some data on the computer's flash but 100% accessible, would be nice.

Not a cabinet like a kitchen cabinet, a cabinet like circuit breaker box mounted in the garage. It needs to be ruggedized so that it can deal with high dust, high humidity, occasional bumps, not ruggedized such that I can throw it off the rim of the Grand Canyon to be found in perfect working order by whoever comes next after humans are extinct.

I want people who are building small, moderate power computers to be thinking that I want a cloud in my home. I want to walk over to it periodically and replace some

Not a cabinet like a kitchen cabinet, a cabinet like circuit breaker box mounted in the garage. It needs to be ruggedized so that it can deal with high dust, high humidity, occasional bumps, not ruggedized such that I can throw it off the rim of the Grand Canyon to be found in perfect working order by whoever comes next after humans are extinct.

I want people who are building small, moderate power computers to be thinking that I want a cloud in my home. I want to walk over to it periodically and replace some kind of failed storage device. But other than that I'd like the damned thing to be mostly hands off and not something I have to fit into the decor of my house.

I am considering purchasing one to make it some sorts if midi station connected to my piano keyboard. I already have a laptop LCD screen in place of the partiture, so this is just the last piece of the cake.

I was not planning creating one but maybe that would be cool. I'll setup something tonight then,. I'll drop the link here, maybe you guys have some good ideas.

Basically I want rosegarden and timidity to work. I didn't check yet if rosegarden can be built for ARM. Timidity can be built for ARM.Regarding the distribution, I'm going to create something dedicated using Gentoo.

Then I'll need to find a good input device. I thought about using a cheap resistive touch panel over the LCD. But maybe that's no

Then stick it in a closet, or a basement or the back of some cabinet. Screw the trendy little bricks. Get yourself a BeagleBone Black or a Raspberry Pi and mount it on a wall next to a switch in a closet.

I ended up buying a small rack (12U, 2-post, desktop) and putting a small 1U switch, 1U UPS and 2U mini-itx server in it. It sits in a closet where I had a power outlet installed on a separate circuit and an air vent installed. I also cut small hole in the wall to the closet to allow conduit and run network

These cubes could serve as media players, or browsing PCs or just as unobtrusive mail/file/web servers. I'm not sure what's stopping you throwing a Raspberry Pi or some other board into a ruggedized cabinet into the wall of your home if you so wished.

There once was a time on slashdot (and in the rest of the world) where people would tinker and hack and put things together for the *fun* of it. We truly live in dark times. Go on, I'm sure netflix is waiting.

My biggest problem with these mini computers is the interface. Sure you can get a tiny computer for cheap now, but touch screens (the only interface that would remotely work and be supported at the same time) are still $200 minimum. Size of the screen has little effect on the price and there are very few choices so you have to adjust your application to fit the part rather than the other way around.

What we need is a smart-phone that's not a phone, runs on 12volt DC and has a back brimming with I/O ports.

You can get any one of dozens of quad core ARM tablet PCs in 7" with 10-point capacitive touch that run Ubuntu or Android for under $100 delivered. SDHC and HDMI out at 1080p for the second screen, usb if you must have wired network, keyboard and mouse or whatever. For $200 you can get 10". Admit it: your complaint has an unstated "with Windows". That, you can't have.

Other competition seems to be several times as expensive and have terrible specs.

What are you on about? You can get a MK908 for $65ish from various sources, the GPU is only a bit slower, the CPU is slightly faster. I would have bought an Odroid U2 but they only offer a four week warranty. That does not demonstrate confidence in the product.

Under $70 shipped. I believe it can also run linux, but I want android for XBMC Full HW accel (thanks to PIOS team) and full Netflix HW accel in 1 box. Also that 70 has enclosure. Yes only dual core, but it has played everything I've thrown at it in XBMC and streamed from multiple sources fine, plays netflix great.

A $120 one which is much better (has a FPU for a start), a lot more RAM.. 512MB, and is bundled in a keyboard like an 8bit or 16bit computer.http://www.norhtec.com/products/surfboard/index.html [norhtec.com] Looks fun! But doesn't look powerful enough to play youtube videos (it will run any x86 stuff too, as long as it's not i686)

yes, only problem is that android on these systems is absolutely horrible for anything but media center work.
If you want a PC, then don't go for any of those. I have a mk802 II and its capabilities as a general purpose machine are pathetic

Oh I don't know. If general purpose is web browsing, email, Facebook, Netflix, and some casual gaming it's actually pretty good. It won't run Crysis, even through an RDP connection to my gaming PC, but I didn't expect that from a $40 HDMI stick.

Will buy it, but will not preorder it. I have a bad experience with such a business strategy. And lets face it, preorder is like giving away a lot of money with the hope that the seller will fulfill his promise, to deliver....i hope you got the picture.

1) it's a small PC which is cool but there is something to be said for mechanical stability, which is why all those android sticks plug directly into an HDMI port. i'm not saying they should do that but they need to do something.2) eSATA enclosures are costly (nearly the same price as the CuBox) so why not just have SATA port and offer larger cases that incorporate everything you need, like a power system so that you you can run this using your 2.5" or 3.5" drive? it would even solve the mechanical stabi

imagine a beowulf cluster of those... with hdmi dongle there is a problem of needing an hdmi connection for every node in your cluster. usb and ethernet are both better. at least PoE is great for small clusters. i do not know which devices support PoE but it is great at reducing cable clutter for a beowulf cluster

I'm underwhelmed. The top end quad core device is $130, and they want another $38 for "shipping" (Stated as "$18 to $38). Clearly a 2x2x2 device, even well packed, should cost a lot less to ship. And on top of that, the Android microSd card is "optional". In that price range I can buy a damn nice quad core tablet with HDMI output. Might not have eSATA support, but will have USB support and will have a color touch screen, battery, accelerometers and position sensor (and maybe a Gyro or even GPS) and a lot more utility. Or if you want to go completely low end you can still get low end tablets for close to the base price of this device.

You would be much better off buying a Pi, or hacking a ChromeCast or ever a hackable Linux based router. This looks to me like another "me too" device to profit off the community funding model.

I agree. It seems they just want to push their profit margins while forgetting the early adopters (us) have a pretty good understanding of what we're [thinking of] buying. Build your market and following and THEN focus on profits when you've got a market. Here's what will happen, especially in Linux/Android based devices. Someone will ALWAYS be cheaper and they will use some of your ideas in the process. May as well accept it now. You will not own or dominate your section of the market without fans an

Um, a RPi is much less powerful than even the $45 model.The ChromeCast uses a Marvell SoC. Marvell is notoriously uncooperative when it comes to documentation and details about their hardware, unless you are Google. (So is Broadcom btw.)Freescale is much more open and forthcoming.

This one combines eSata with gbit ethernet (limited to 470 Mbit though, yes) and a pretty powerful video engine. Seems very nice as a DVR/HTPC combo, and/or a box for transcoding media.

I want a car-puter that's worth a damn and I'm flexible about what I would find acceptable in that regard.

1. I want it in a car (obviously) but that means it requires some things other computing devices will not but among these are power/heat management and tolerance most might begin to realize is completely hostile to computer devices.2. I want it to meet current expectations in software and in hardware. (For example, 1280x800 minimum display, not 800x480 and Android 4.x, not Android 2.x! I am looking at YOU Parrot! You insult us all with your specs.)3. I want it to be flexible and more general purpose even if it is limited by its use in a car. This means having a wide range of peripheral inputs and outputs and the ability to use a variety of displays and display types. It also means keeping it open and not restricted. (Parrot, could you explain to me your parrot store or whatever you call it? I get that things *can* be side-loaded, but I think that was more of a concession than anything else.)4. I want it to be open as Android was intended. This means we will buy your hardware, but don't try to tell us what we can do with it. We KNOW what's on your mind and we don't approve. It's not so much about "quality control" as much as it is consumer control. Parrot, once again, I'm looking at you. There are competitors coming hard and fast and you don't want to be forgotten simply because you thought being among the first means you can take advantage of the lacking consumer choice. Some consumers have a short memory while others like me do not. I will NEVER buy Sony again, for example. Sony doesn't respect consumers. I won't buy into that ever.

Why do these newer small computers always seem to lack a serial port? Do you have to connect a physical keyboard and monitor to configure sshd before you can get in through the ethernet or wireless interfaces and run it headless? Or can you get console IO through the USB ports?

Related question: is GPU acceleration available without connecting a physical monitor? Some systems seem to require a dongle to fool the computer into thinking a monitor is attached before loading the drivers that provide access to

One use case is a top-of-camera video encoder-streamer like the miniCaster or Teradek Cube. Hardware accelerated H.264 or other encoding via the GPU instead of a dedicated chip combined with networking support would be much cheaper than the commercial devices.

This looks like it would make a great DVR frontend device IF it has usable video acceleration. The summary says that it does, but there is a huge difference between hardware capable of a feature and functioning Linux support for it.

What video formats does it support? Only H.264, like most recent devices? Or, will it do MPEG2 (the U.S. broadcast HDTV standard)?Does it have Linux drivers for the video acceleration? VDPAU API support?

There are tons of devices out there that look great on paper, but very fe

I have been playing around with the Freescale VPU. It is very powerful, can do 1080p easily, Linux support is solid. It can also encode in hardware. Supported formats I know of are: h264, mpeg-1/2/4, vp8, vc-1,wmv3,mjpeg. I think h263 too, not sure though. It also has deinterlacing and hardware scaling and color space conversion capabilities (think YUV->RGB).

No VDPAU support. But VDPAU is nVidia only. You probably meant VA-API. I do not know if this is supported. There are GStreamer plugins for it, XBMC

What I'd really want is a small ARM-based board that's good for a low-power server; something that can run a simple web site, Tiny Tiny RSS and keep a few git repositories.

The boards we're seeing now are getting close; they have 1-2GB memory, networking and SATA interfaces. What's really missing is the software support over time. Unlike an embedded system you do want security updates and OS updates over time, so you really want a platform that is a regular target for a major distro, whether Red Hat, Ubuntu

I like the idea, but at the high end with shipping you are almost up into the Celeron price range. This would be for a 14W motherboard/cpu combo which should outperform this and would be a much more flexible system.

Something like this might be just the thing I'm looking for -- There are other tiny android boxes I've been looking at to replace my (aging) htpc. I want to be able to use my nexus 7 as a remote -- to control *everything* on the TV -- that's local video, netflix & random web stuff. Also I'd like to have a single audio output to my sound system for everything, but not have to have the TV on to listen to music. I've yet to find anything truly ideal. Even this probably won't be perfect, but at least it

All these ARM SOCs are nice but they all have weird closed up GPUs that have crap close sourced drivers that barely work.

There are projects to reverse engineer Adreno (Qualcomm) and Mali (ARM) GPUs and implement drivers for them, but these projects are nowhere near production ready. And as far as I know Qualcomm has other issues with openness- they are denying release of hackable Android for their devices because it contains some secret proprietary BLOBs, without which it won't work.

So when it comes to Linux hardware support on ARM, it feels like 90s all over again... I'd rather buy a small x86, it will be larger, more expensive, it will consume much more power, but at least open-source hardware support is going to be nice and I won't need any BLOBs.

The i.MX6 inside uses a Vivante GPU. Vivante drivers work rather well, but for some reason, that company can't version their drivers, which is annoying. However, Freescale takes care of this. When working on Sabre SD boards, I always had stable OpenGL ES and OpenVG support. Newest Vivante drivers even support desktop OpenGL (only 2.1 though).

There is also an opensource driver project called etnaviv https://github.com/laanwj/etna_viv [github.com] it has come pretty far. People have been running GLQuake and others with it

Once you start browsing the web site for these cubes, it's surprisingly shallow. There is no real information, the forum has a total of 6 posts and the wiki is empty. If you want to find out what video codecs are supported, or what linux distributions are ported to this device, your search will turn up nothing.

This may all change, but once you're getting your product up on sites like SlashDot, you really should have things like this taken care of. Right now it has a vaporware scent all over it and it may ju

All you have to do is to look for the i.MX6 specs. That gives you the infos you want. Having worked with Sabre SD devices (which also use the i.MX6 and performed very well), I am pretty excited about this.

I'm sick of all these mini SoC that only have hardware decoding to do 1080p video but only JUST enough grunt/ram to run XBMC. Gimme something that can actually handle XBMC + Aeon or a skin other than Confluence at a decent clip, then I'll be impressed.

I have their older 700MHz unit (single core) 2 GB of memory I bought not too long ago (of course, that is how it always works). So far the unit has actually exceeded my expectations and is a lot of fun to play with. For me I wanted something that I could install Kali Linux on (the successor to Backtrack Linux) to do some simple type attacks on a network (I teach part time at a community college an information security class).
First what I don't like:
The shipping comes for Isreal. The price of shipping is $30 which raises the cost of the product.
That they came out with a new one shortly after I already bought one that includes a lot of features I wanted.
What I like:
Gigabit ethernet
They have this thing called u-boot which is pretty slick. You stick a file on a usb memory stick and stick it into the top USB port. Connect the ethernet and then boot up and it asks you what OS you want to install. You can select Ubuntu, Opensuse, Fedora, XBMC and a bunch more and it just installs them to the SD card. Very slick.
It has the ability to serial into the unit so you don't have to set up a mouse, keyboard and monitor to install OSes. Works in Linux and Windows (with putty fine).
I can then do SSH X forwarding really easy from the network if you want a GUI.
I have been able to run a slew of python things on it and the performance is reasonable. I really have been having fun with it.

True. However, does Richard Stallman now seem so stupid for asking that everyone call "Linux" systems "GNU/Linux" systems? We now have Android/Linux as well as GNU/Linux, so the distinction actually turns out to be a rather important one to make. Everyone likes to joke about how RMS is a crackpot with bad hygeine, but it seems he's been right more often than not.

At this point, Android/Linux is usually just "Android", and GNU/Linux is just "Linux". The only times that I hear a different use in my life is when someone's trying to sound smart on the internet. So far, it seems like disambiguation has kind of taken care of itself.

Uhm, but Android truly is Linux. For many kinds of development work targetting Android, that fact is very important.

It matters very much that Android and, say, Ubuntu, have the same Linux kernel. It allows for an amazing span of shared effort. And of course it matters very much that Android and Ubuntu are very different OSes.

So, yes, RMS is exactly right.

I'll furthermore add that Debian, and OS that many people like you would like to simply call "Linux", is also available in a totally entirely absolut

The moment anyone uses a different non-GNU userland w/ Linux, it would no longer be GNU/Linux, but it wouldn't be Android either. So it makes sense to just use Android for Android, Chrome OS for ChromeOS and Linux for conventional combinations of the Linux kernel and GNU/BSD/Other userlands.

It's a matter of an old-fashioned thing called 'common decency' to call it GNU/Linux. Without the thousands of GNU components the OS wouldn't even have a working compiler suite. Credit to where it's due.

As for Android, it's just Android although it should be Android/Linux. That's because the company that made Android is not very decent.

no the differentiation is not important at all. We have android and we have Linux. At least that is what most people in the real world call them, those that understand the difference don't need it pointed out and those that don't understand could not give a shit anyway.

Far too much debate on the internet goes into arguing about what words really mean. It is true that Android could be argued that it is simply another distribution based on a Linux kernel, and I would agree...and then call that version of Linux Android, but confusingly Linux is really a reference to GNU/Linux or Desktop Linux, shortened intentionally because Linus is awesome, or more likely out of "common usage" which has come about because its kind of catchy, even if you deep down think that GNU/Linux was p

Yes & No. Here, Linux means a conventional distro like Ubuntu, whereas Android means the tablet/phone OS based on the Linux kernel w/ the Dalvik VM on top of it. Android implies that a whole ecosystem of apps is available, whereas w/ Linux, it varies.

The thing I'm wondering is - if it's not a tablet and needs to be connected to a non-touch external monitor, why use Android, instead of ChromeOS?